Chapter 2- Between Life and Death
895 Words
I didn’t wake up all at once.
It wasn’t like the movies… no sudden breath, no dramatic moment where everything just made sense again.
It came in pieces.
Fragments.
Like my soul was trying to remember how to live inside my body.
At first, there was nothing.
Just darkness.
Not the kind you see when you close your eyes… "This one had weight. It pressed against me. Wrapped around me. Made me feel like I was sinking deeper the more I tried to rise.
Then came sound.
Distant.
Muffled.
Like voices underwater.
“…he’s still breathing…”
“…we need to monitor…”
“…it’s bad…”
I couldn’t tell who was speaking. I couldn’t even tell where I was. But one thing was clear—
They weren’t sure if I was going to make it.
I tried to move.
Nothing.
Not even a finger.
Panic crept in slowly, like a shadow crawling up a wall.
I tried again.
Nothing.
My body… wasn’t mine anymore.
Then pain introduced itself.
Not sharp.
Not loud.
But everywhere.
It sat in my bones, in my chest, in my head… like something had rearranged me from the inside and forgot to put me back together.
I wanted to scream.
But even my voice had abandoned me.
A machine beeped somewhere close.
Steady.
Mocking me.
Each beep sounded like a countdown.
Not to life…
…but to the end.
And then—
Her voice.
Soft.
Broken.
“Please… don’t leave me.”
Joyce.
Even without seeing her, I knew. The way she spoke my name without saying it… the way her voice trembled like she was holding back a storm.
I felt something warm on my hand.
Tears.
She was crying over me.
And I couldn’t even squeeze her hand back.
Time passed.
Or maybe it didn’t.
In that place… time didn’t exist.
There was only waiting.
Waiting to wake up…
or waiting to disappear.
At some point, I felt movement.
My body shifts.
Hands lifting me.
Voices giving instructions.
“Careful… careful…”
“Watch his head…”
I wanted to ask where they were taking me.
I wanted to ask if I was going to live.
But I was trapped.
A prisoner inside my own body.
Then came the cold again.
Air against my skin.
Different from before.
Cleaner.
Quieter.
I forced my eyes open just enough to catch a glimpse—
White lights.
Ceiling panels passing above me.
We were moving.
A hospital.
Relief should have come.
But it didn’t.
Because deep down… something felt wrong.
Days blurred into each other.
I would wake up… then disappear again.
Wake up… then drift.
Every time I came back, I hoped for control.
And every time… I found nothing.
No movement.
No voice.
Just thoughts.
There are too many thoughts.
I could hear everything.
Doctors talking.
Nurses walking.
Machines breathing for people in nearby beds.
Life continuing around me…
while I remained stuck.
And then one day—
My mother.
Her presence filled the room before she even spoke.
A mother knows.
She always knows.
“My child…”
Her voice cracked.
I felt her hands on me—gentle, careful, afraid to break what was already broken.
“I’m here… I’m here…”
Tears dropped onto my face.
Warm.
Real.
Alive.
That was the moment it hit me the hardest.
Not the pain.
Not the stabbing.
Not even the fear of dying.
But this—
Seeing my mother suffer…
because of me.
I tried to speak.
To tell her I was still here.
To tell her I wasn’t gone.
But my lips didn’t move.
Nothing moved.
And for the first time since that night…
I felt fear.
Real fear.
What if I stay like this?
What if this is who I am now?
Anger followed quickly.
Burning through the fear.
No.
This is not how my story ends.
I remembered the prayer.
The one I whispered while dying.
> “Not today.”
If God heard me then…
He wasn’t about to leave me like this.
But faith doesn’t make the pain disappear.
And it doesn’t make the struggle easier.
It just gives you a reason…
to keep fighting.
One morning—if it was morning—I felt something different.
A twitch.
Small.
Almost nothing.
But it was there.
My finger.
Moved.
I focused everything on it.
Every thought.
Every ounce of will.
Move.
Nothing.
Again.
Move.
A slight response.
Barely visible… but enough.
Hope.
For the first time since that night…
I felt it.
Recovery didn’t come like a miracle.
It came like war.
Slow.
Painful.
Unforgiving.
Every small movement felt like lifting a mountain.
Every breath felt borrowed.
And the world outside?
It didn’t wait.
The bills didn’t stop.
People didn’t pause their lives.
Responsibility didn’t disappear.
I was still a father.
Still a son.
Still, a man expected to stand…
when I couldn’t even sit.
Lying there, staring at a ceiling that became my sky…
I made myself a promise:
> If I walk again…
If I speak again…
If I live through this…
I will never be the same man I was before.
Because the truth is—
I didn’t just survive that night.
I was reborn in that hospital bed.
But rebirth comes with pain.
And I was about to learn…
just how much pain a man can carry and still keep breathing.
- Writer
